'No Time Pressure' for Risk-Averse GfK

GfK will not take 'unreasonable' financial risks in bidding for TNS, according to Klaus Wuebbenhorst. The CEO has played down the pressure on his firm, which is said to be in talks with 'other wealthy German families' in addition to the Herz family.

Wuebbenhorst reiterated the firm's caution from last week: 'We're are still studying whether we'll submit an offer'. He told Germany's Welt am Sonntag paper that there was 'no time pressure' for GfK, which he believes would find another good target firm if this deal falls through.

On Friday, Britain's Financial Times backed reports that coffee billionaires Günter and Daniela Herz were in talks regarding support for GfK's all-cash bid but said that 'discussions are ongoing with other sources of finance, likely to be other wealthy German families', to fund a bid valuing TNS at more than EUR 1.4bn.

Meanwhile analysts and commentators have been poring over the prospects for the ongoing WPP bid for TNS, which has risen from $1.87bn in early May to around $2.13bn last week - comparable to the GfK sum mentioned above. They note that previous high-ticket acquisitions such as Y&R, Grey and 24/7 RealMedia, have led to a decline in WPP's share price worse than the overall market performance, despite sound strategic motives. WPP has said that the TNS bid is all about improving its client offering and boosting the proportion of its revenues accounted for by the more recession-proof marketing services such as research, as opposed to advertising.

The firm's acquisitions continue: today WPP has acquired a majority stake in Czech online marketing firm Advertures, which joins its Ogilvy unit. Based in Prague, Advertures employs 28 people and had unaudited revenues for the year ended December 31 2007 of c.£1.2m.

Web sites: www.gfk.com , www.tnsglobal.com and www.wpp.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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